DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “Trump Flip-Flops on Epstein”

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou catch you up from the weekend in news. Among the highlights: Trump’s Epstein flip-flop, Chile chooses between extreme left and right, Iran stops uranium enrichment, and the US plan for Gaza gets bogged down in the Security Counsel.Trump's Sudden Epstein Files Reversal: Trying to avoid a humiliating defeat in the House, President Trump now urges House Republicans to back a measure compelling the Justice Department to release Epstein files, marking a sharp pivot after his campaign to quash GOP dissent and halt the vote after the shutdown. He posts on social media, insisting Republicans vote yes "because we have nothing to hide," while dismissing the push as a "Democrat Hoax" to deflect from Republican victories like averting a shutdown. This turn follows intense White House pressure, including Situation Room meetings with his AG and FBI director, amid scrutiny over newly released emails where Epstein claims Trump spent hours at his home with a trafficking victim; tensions erupt with allies like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.Chile's Presidential Runoff Pits Left Against Far-Right: Chile's election heads to a December 14 runoff between Communist Party's Jeannette Jara, who edges out the first round, and far-right José Antonio Kast, amid surging crime and immigration debates fueled by 1.9 million foreigners, including 330,000 undocumented Venezuelans. Jara pledges lithium production increases, minimum wage hikes, new prisons, and army border deployments to expel drug-trafficking foreigners, warning that democracy faces risks after costly recoveries. Kast vows Trump-style walls, ditches along Peru-Bolivia borders, mass deportations, and El Salvador-like maximum-security prisons, blaming migrants for crime despite studies showing lower offense rates; his Pinochet-linked family history and anti-abortion stance rally splintered right-wing votes from Evelyn Matthei and Johannes Kaiser, potentially tilting Chile rightward in Latin America's shifting tides.UN Security Council Clashes Over Gaza Resolution: The U.S. pushes a resolution annexing Trump's 20-point Gaza peace plan for international mandate, seeking UN backing for stabilization forces and a vague Board of Peace, but Russia counters with its own 10-point resolution demanding Palestinian statehood and unity of West Bank-Gaza, omitting U.S.-favored structures. China aligns with Russia, while Algeria, France, and Europeans demand clearer Palestinian Authority roles and self-determination pathways; the U.S. finalizes minimal changes, adding six-month progress reports but deferring statehood to the plan, prompting accusations of rushing texts that sideline Council authority. Tensions peak as Russia decries U.S. discord-sowing, with joint U.S. statements from Qatar, Egypt, UAE, Indonesia, and Pakistan hailing the plan as a "viable path," yet veto threats loom in a deadlock echoing two years of Gaza stalemates.Iran Halts Uranium Enrichment: Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi declares that no uranium enrichment is taking place at any site, following June bombings by Israel and the U.S. on facilities now under IAEA safeguards and monitoring. He affirms Iran's "undeniable" right to peaceful nuclear tech, including enrichment, vowing never to relinquish it while hoping for U.S. recognition to resume talks. This statement emerges during an AP-hosted summit on "International Law Under Assault," where Iranian analysts critique the 12-day war, spotlighting German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's praise for Israel's "dirty work." What’s Iran trying to do?

We've always been at war with East Asia. We've always been allied with Eurasia. Welcome to D-Program with Ted Rall and John Kariaku. If it's Monday morning, the Epstein Files must be something that the president has always wanted to release. Good morning, John. Good morning, Ted. How you doing? I'm doing good.

So, okay, so obviously the big news of the weekend is Donald Trump, let's just say, has pivoted on his opinion. of how Republicans should vote in the House of Representatives. We will talk about that, obviously. The polarization of the electorate is not just an American phenomenon. Chile has a presidential runoff between a member of the Communist Party and the far right related to Pinochet. So I don't know. It's hard to imagine a much more extreme presidential.

At least the Chileans can't say they don't have a real choice. The U.N. Security Council is all tied up and knots over the U.S. proposal for what happens to Gaza next. Iran has announced that it already had halted uranium enrichment following the bombings of their facilities there. Obviously, if you're watching the show live, please feel free to, as usual, ask questions, make comments in the live chats on Rumble and YouTube. And the person who will tell us what you're saying and put it up for us is back. I want to give a big deep program welcome back to Robbie West, our producer, who, thanks to your generous contributions, is back full time where he belongs. Welcome home, Robbie. Thank you.

It's good to be back. And seriously, thank you all for everyone who supported the gives him go and support the channel because, I mean, if y'all wouldn't do it, I wouldn't be here. So thank y'all. We will, just a reminder, if you're just joining us about this, Robbie got doxed from his day job, which we can talk about at some other point in the future. But maybe it'll be a Rumble premium story. That'd be a good one to do. And Ted, let me interrupt you for a second. There are a lot of complaints that the Rumble audio is terrible. Oh, really? Like really terrible.

Well, Robbie, you're in the room, right? Yeah, I'm in the room, so let me troubleshoot that and see what is going on. I'll take you out and let you troubleshoot that. Thank you, John, for letting me know that, letting Robbie know that. And so, yeah, please like, follow and share the show. We're here Monday through Friday at 9 a.m. Eastern time. We're going to be recording some Rumble premium editions. Again, you'll remember the ones that we did about John's life story and my life story.

those were great, especially the one, the John one, and the Robbie one's great too. All of that stuff is still available to Rumble Premium members. It'll cost you $5 a month to see that $10 a month to see all Rumble premium content, not just our show. So do consider that. Do consider joining us over on Rumble. At some point, I'll have Robbie come on and explain again why that's so important to help support the show. And we should just get to it, I think, right, John? Sounds good.

You know, before we do, we're going to jump into the Epstein issue, which we shouldn't even have to discuss. But anyway, that seems to be the top story today. Before we do that, though, I just wanted to say that John Bolton is out and about. He appeared on CNN this morning not to talk about the criminal case against him that could land him in a federal. prison for the rest of his life. But instead, he wanted to pitch the idea that we really need to invade Venezuela like yesterday. Of course. Listen, he's a mental midget as it is in his normal state.

But the reasoning for invading Venezuela immediately is that they have good relations with Russia, China, and Iran. and that's unacceptable and that that's the reason that's why we need to invade a country overthrow its government you know if they if they posed what at the agency we still like to say a clear and present danger to the united states american citizens or american installations okay they're firing rockets at our ships they're kidnapping our citizens go with god overthrow them. But just because you don't like the foreign relations that the country has, talk about fascism. It is fascist. And not to met, I mean, even Donald Trump's not making that argument. No, even Donald Trump's not saying that. You know, I mean, we should talk a little bit about

Venezuela. The Gerald R. Ford, which is the biggest aircraft carrier in the American arsenal, is off the coast of Venezuela now. And obviously, it feels like old-fashioned Monroe Doctrine, 19th century gunboat diplomacy, you know, saber rattling. The impression that I'm getting from the reporting inside the White House is the president hasn't really quite decided what, if anything, he wants to do here, right? So, you know, and I don't think that Venezuela's relationship with Russia has really anything to do with this calculus. Now, more and more information is coming out about just how non-involved Venezuela's relationship Venezuela's drug business, which exists, but how much of it makes its way to the U.S., not much

is the answer. Nothing. Right. And so it's like, I guess it's like this is make Africa great again, so we're protecting the Africans from, at least the acronyms, right? But, I mean, what's in it for Donald Trump? I mean, you know, a big part of the reason that Donald Trump is president of the United States is that he, that he, you know, belatedly,

but certainly earlier than most other Republicans, came out against the Iraq War and ran against the Iraq War in the Republican primaries, which was quite bold. Yes. You know, this feels a lot, this feels very bushy, doesn't it? Like, hey, look, there's a country with a lot of oil. Let's overthrow its government.

Yeah. Yeah, this doesn't make any sense. cents at all. Do you care to handicap this? I will. I don't think he will launch a ground invasion. I don't. I think we might see some at most some limited air strikes, and that's about it.

I think that's right. And look at it this way, too. He has enough problems with his base right now over these Epstein files. He flip-flopped overnight or late last night and decided to urge Republicans. and the House of Representatives to vote in favor of releasing the files, which really makes no sense to me. Because as you and I were saying before the stream started, you don't need a congressional vote to release these files. These are executive branch documents. All he has to do is say, release the files, and then it's done.

It would be done in a couple of hours. Instead of doing that, he's urging Republicans to vote to force him to release the files. I don't understand it at all. I think it's a delay tactic. John, I'm being told in the chat, in the YouTube chat, that my sound sucks. I don't know. You know what I'm going to do.

I'm going to just, John, keep talking. Yeah. I'm going to refresh myself and see if that helps. Yeah. Listen, Gregory Vadis is also saying in the comments in the chat, John, did you see over the weekend the article about CIA operations in Afghanistan of her poppy. Absolutely. And my attorney and I started an op-ed to the New York Times to respond to this, saying, well, the CIA tried nine ways from Sunday to stamp out the poppy trade in Afghanistan,

and they tried to create this new strain of poppy that can't reproduce. That's all nonsense. That was the CIA's poppy. It was the CIA's heroin. I know because the CIA told me it was, I was in the CIA, and all of that heroin was sold to Russia and to Iran, and we want them to be addicted to heroin. So this silliness that the CIA was beating itself up over the heroin trade in Afghanistan, it's nothing but silliness. Guys, if I sound any better or worse, please let me know. I refreshed.

So I sound better to myself back in my cans, as Paul McCartney would have said in the 60s. Yeah, so, all right, well, we'll continue to watch Venezuela. Should we talk about Epstein? Yeah, let's talk about Epstein. Okay, so obviously for months now, Donald Trump has been, you know, militantly opposed to releasing these documents. Thomas Massey finally got that discharge petition that you explained John last week in great detail, how that works out, got to 218, which is a simple majority in the House of Representatives, forces the release. of one trench of these documents, not all of them. And now they're out, right? So, well, they're going to be, there's some of the Democrats released some of them.

And now they're all going to be out. Trump now over the weekend basically is trying to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and, you know, imminent defeat and saying rather than lose this vote, which was going to make him look horrible, he's going to then, he's like, okay, okay, I'm all for it. Yeah, you know, there's nothing to hide here. Well, there's obviously something to hide. You know, nobody thinks that Donald Trump diddled underaged girls. No, nobody's accusing him.

I mean, you know, anything is possible, but really that's not really on the table. But, I mean, you know, it's not a big stretch to think that he's got a lot of rich and powerful friends that he might be trying to protect. Yeah. I think that's probably it. And he was so disingenuous day before yesterday in demanding that the Congress investigation, Bill Clinton. Like, everybody knows Bill Clinton was on that island. Everybody knows Bill Clinton was on the plane. Everybody knows that Bill Clinton is a sleaze ball. Everybody knows it. We've always known it. But that doesn't answer any of the questions about other people

in the files. You know, again, you and I were talking before the show started about Richard Nixon in 1973, the year before he was forced to resign the presidency because of water Gate. Well, Watergate, the break-in took place in 1972. Word first leaked out in 1973. And Nixon taught us that the cover-up is always worse than the crime. So we're seeing it again now. Just release the documents and let the cards fall. Always. Nobody believes that Donald Trump is in those files. There's never been an accusation that Donald Trump was diddling underage girls, just release the documents and let the people make their own decisions. Yeah, yeah. Well, so that's obviously what's going to happen. You and I were just talking about

right before we went on the show and started the countdown that the, that, you know, as Nixon learned from trying to cover up the Watergate tapes, once the, once people, journalists, Congress becomes aware that there's a trench of super juicy, interesting media that they want to consume, it's only a matter of time before it gets released. You're going to release it. So isn't it like sort of crisis management 101 that you should get ahead of, you know, get ahead of it and make it look like it's your own idea? Yeah, exactly. Yes. You know, even think back about when Reagan was president and Iran contra broke. The very first thing that Reagan did. He meant well. It didn't work, but he meant well. Was he named what he called a blue

ribbon panel to investigate Iran-Contra led by none other than Edwin Meese than the Attorney General? He had been Reagan's campaign manager in 1980. When that didn't uncover the truth of Iran-Contra, he fired everybody and named a bipartisan blue-ribbon panel. That's what got to the bottom of Iran-Contra. That's what we need now. Yeah, and then Reagan did that really famous Mayaculpa, like, well, I didn't really know what my people were doing, but now that I found out, I'm really not pleased. Yeah. I don't know. Did anyone believe him? I kind of felt like

half the people believed him. And the only one that got fired was Oliver North. Nobody else was fired. But belatedly, he came out of it with a wife. Yeah. And he came out of it. of it with a wife exactly took several took half a century but you know better late than never well it's it's one of those rare situations where you marry your secretary but it's not the gross way you know you got caught on the conference room table totally totally oh my god i worked for uh i worked for a dean at

columbia who got caught um boning one of the custonians on her on her desk a la george castanza I kind of didn't know whether to be disgusted or impressed. I could kind of both, really. So, all right, so what happens now? So obviously the Republicans are going to vote for this will pass. Is there any question? First of all, you were pointing out that this vote doesn't have to happen. No, the vote doesn't have to happen.

Again, these are executive branch documents. He owns them as the leader of the executive branch. all he has to do is pick up the phone, call the Attorney General, and say, release the documents, and then it's done. But now we've got to go through this vote in the House, which is going to, which is going to carry overwhelmingly. Then it has to go to the Senate. And John Thune hasn't agreed to have a vote on the release of the documents. And even if he did and it passed or it had 60 votes to break cloture, would Donald Trump sign it? So none of it has to have. happen you can just do it so i'm i'm still trying to troubleshoot here i'm getting mixed mixed

reviews how do i sound to you john you sound perfectly normal to me so that's to me indicates i don't know must be must maybe it's a stream yard glitch here i'm to put robbie on robbie what's robbie what's going on how do we sound uh to me on the back end y'all sound fine. The problem is that your audio, I mean, your upload packets are crap. What is your upload speed? Can you tell? How could I tell? I don't know how I could tell that. I will send you a link and then send it. I think what I'm going to do, instead of grabbing from X, I'm just going to try to grab the feed straight from Streamyard and see what happened. So basically, you only get this snapshot of what looks like on the back end, but I can't think of any other way to make this

thing work without a cell like we're in a bathroom stall. So, I mean, we could, I mean, yeah okay but because the audio is coming through from great on this tab and over on x you're stuttering so the way this works for y'all who don't know uh ted streams to x i grab the x feed pull it into rumble studio and then send it out to everyone that's watching so that's it's kind of convoluted the problem is that uh ted's computer his hamster is tired so that's for trying to work it on right now how does that i just i just re i just re i just refreshed my x let me see Y'all let me know. Go ahead.

Yep, no, they're saying the audio is still crap on both Rumble and YouTube. Well, remember, there's a 15 to 20 second lag. Yeah, so let's see what happens. Okay. This is, this is, you know, it's kind of funny when I, Mike Gallagher, the conservative talk show host who kind of trained me about how to do talk radio back in the day. And he, you know, he said that like, you're muted. I'm muted. on x i think you're muted no i'm not you're not i'm not muted okay uh cooper just said that you're

muted oh this tab's audio is being muted hold on let me see unmute okay here we go okay now they're saying it's fine better oh good much better good good good good okay so let so let's just let this go for like 30 40 seconds we'll see how it sounds great we're supposed to work y'all what i'm going to do is after i get this i'm to rebroadcast this episode so y'all actually be able to hear what it is that we're hearing better uh now it was lag is what cooper's saying let's over here on youtube over on youtube what are y'all saying t's audio is good now way better welcome back john john say something we're yeah now Yeah, I haven't had any problems with audio or video receiving since we started, but I hope this is better.

Yeah, for us, it would, for us, it would sound good. The problem is that we're, because we're having to upload the stuff over to the other, over to X. And so if the upload speed is kind of wonky, then it just screws up everything. But I think we are, I think we're better now. Good. this is the most of the same way i'm getting i'm getting an echo in my in my computer so you don't i don't get an echo from you at all or from rodney okay i'm good now how

uh ted equals fine john sounds good say doesn't want people tell them the truth this morning i think you're right Gregory. Excellent. All right. So is everything good? As far as I can tell, yeah,

John equals fine. The Three Stooges is what Cartman is saying. We've got some donations coming in. Ted, buy yourself a new computer. Oh,

yeah. Yeah, I just literally read that Apple's getting rid of the Mac Pro, which is what I use. So I'm like, no.

Thank you. Totally better. I wish, yeah and y'all y'all in the audience thank y'all so much for letting us know because what we hear what y'all hear are two very different things so without y'all's feedback we don't know it's broken so thank y'all the other day the other let's we'll see uh okay all right let's get yeah right says let's let's resume let's resume okay Robbie thank you very much put you back stage all right so uh shall we move all right oh epstein so okay so these documents they're going to be released um there's probably we don't expect any major new reveals right um well you know the the new times actually went through the 20 000 pages that were released uh at the end of last week they they published an article last night that i thought was very it was good it was biting and a little bit

sad not you know what sad's not the word a little bit pathetic that's the word and the article was about all of these people mentioned in the 20,000 pages that were released last week they used to be somebody in new york society because they were they were rich and they surrounded themselves by other rich people and they ate at the swanky restaurants and they went to the clubs where all the swells go and almost every single one of them had been accused of sexual harassment by women who worked in their companies. Almost every single one of them. They're all pigs. Most of the documents were these millionaires and billionaires emailing Jeffrey Epstein and saying,

Jeffrey, you took it on the chin and you came out smelling like a rose. And now I'm being accused by these bimbos in my office. How do I get through this? how do you get through it stop grabbing them yeah stop being so grabby in the office

dirty old man it's yeah no it's amazing how common that was right I mean you know obviously if you know women they'll tell you how common it was but it's just it's still kind of amazing to me

I don't know how common it is now but holy shit well so and then there's the whole so now this the DOJ This will be the DOJ trance, right? So this represents the total sum of what we know exists, right?

Yeah, this is supposed to be everything. If indeed it is released. And again, Trump is going to go ahead and vote. Yes, he didn't say he's going to sign this thing. And again, he doesn't need a bill in the first place. Just release the documents. Yeah, there's a lot of foot dragging here. it's like well okay i'm going to release them um there's been talk about how because there's a pending

investigation um that there that that might be an excuse a workaround for trump to say well it's all part of an you know ongoing investigations so therefore we can't release them that would be inappropriate that may have worked he should have said that in the very beginning and just stuck to his guns do you think he'll try anyway? I think it's too late. All right. I think it's too late. The Democrats already released those 20,000. See, this is, this is congressional immunity. This is what so many of us were urging Mark Eudal to do at the very end of his Senate term with the torture report. Release the 50,000 pages of the torture report or whatever it was. 5,000 pages. That's what it was, 50,000 pages of supporting documents. Five thousand pages. Just release it. All you have to do,

do is stand up in the well of the Senate and say, as part of Senate business, I'm putting these documents on the record. And you can't be prosecuted because you're doing it as an official act of Congress. Well, the same could be done here with these Epstein documents. John, U.S. Triple X. Arad, thanks for the $2, is asking or saying, Trump put himself in such a bad position by being so adamant about not releasing the documents. that now even if he legitimately releases all of them it's easy to question the credibility of everything that hadn't occurred to me but that hadn't occurred to me either but that's a good problem and i mean a good uh a good point rather not a good problem yeah not a good problem

to have uh for sure michael hicks thank you um john apologies if you already have but can you comment on the events of november 17th that led to the organization that caused you so much trouble in Athens. Thank you for that. Yeah, today is November 17th. On the 17th of November 1973, there was a peaceful

pro-democracy demonstration at the Athens Polytechnic University in central Athens. Greece was in year six at the time of a military dictatorship, something the Greeks called the junta. And the period of seven years of that dictatorship, there's a Greek word for it that translates to the seven-year nightmare. That's how strongly Greeks feel about it.

But anyway, there was this pro-democracy demonstration on the 17th of November. The military responded by sending tanks onto the campus and just opening fire on students, unarmed students. The students say, as many as 500 people were killed. The government says 35 people were killed. The truth is likely somewhere in the middle there. But it's so appalled the entirety of the country that Greeks rose up and overthrew the military dictatorship. Now, the reason why this terrorist group that tried to kill me is called the Revolutionary Organization 17 November is because, Greeks believe rightly or wrongly that it was the United States that created the junta.

It was the United States that propped up the junta. That's mostly true. And it was the United States that urged the military to murder peaceful unarmed students. And so every year, on the 17th of November, a demonstration begins at Parliament and then heads down the street about a month. mile and a half to the American embassy and the demonstration ends at the embassy. Almost every year it becomes violent. And I mean almost every year since 1975, 1974. I mentioned on Friday that before Greece had adopted the euro, they had these big 100 drachma coins that were about the size of an Eisenhower silver dollar,

and they would just wing them at the American embassy and smash the windows. They're big, heavy coins, smash the windows. They would fill up balloons with red paint and lob the red paint balloons at the embassy, and the embassy facade would be covered in red paint. But the group 17 November took this all very seriously, and it's set out to settle scores

with the countries that supported the junta. So they killed not only, Greeks who were part of the junta government or Greek publishers who ran newspaper supportive of the junta. They killed conservative Greek politicians. They killed Americans, and I mean the CIA station chief, two U.S. defense attaches, a U.S. technical sergeant. They shot and severely wounded the DEA agent in the American embassy.

They killed the British defense atesche. They killed the Turkish ambassador. and the deputy ambassador. They fired a shoulder, fired rocket at the German ambassador's house. The French embassy and the French ambassador's house, they weren't afraid of trying to kill people in broad daylight. They actually preferred to do it in broad daylight. And then in 2002, one of 17 November's bombers

was carrying a bomb in a brown paper bag in the port city of Piraeus. He was going to the car, to find the car of an important Greek shipowner to put the bomb under the car and to kill him when he came out of work. Instead, the bomb went off in his hands, blew his hands off and blew his right eye out.

He thought he was going to bleed to death, but a nearby policeman tried to stop the blood. This bomber confessed to everything. that he and his two brothers were three of the core members of 17 November. He gave us the names of the members, the other members. He gave us the location of the safe house. He confessed to everything that they had done going back to 1974. And then he lived.

He lived after ratting everybody out. So they were all arrested. They were all convicted. The two leaders, the founder and the chief assassin, a guy they called the black hand because everything he touched, died. Dimitris de Fontinas. What a nickname. Yeah.

They were sentenced to 1,765 years in prison. I read an article last week. It was an interview with the son of the CIA station chief, Richard Welch, who was murdered. He was the first 17 November assassination on December 23rd, 1974. and and the son who's now he's got to be in his in his 70s by now said that he will not rest until um alexanderos yotopoulos the founder of 17th of ever and dimitris kufadinas the black hand until they're dead and in the ground and then he'll allow himself the luxury of not worrying about whether the Greek government is going to release them on good behavior.

I can understand that completely. Should we move over to Chile? Yeah. I'm mystified by what's happening in Chile. So there's just been the first round of the presidential election. We now go to a runoff between, so this is like a French style thing where you do it in two trenches. On December 14th, Jeanette Jara, she's from the Communist Party, but is viewed as center-left within Chile. So not really, you know, she's a communist, but she's not like

looking to do much other than just use the red and yellow bunting. She's not really going to seize the means of production. And then Jose Antonio Cast is actually favored to win, according to the current polls. Looks like a lot of the issues are issues that Americans would recognize and Brits and people all over Europe. A lot of it is about the influence of drug cartels and drug trafficking, the illegal and legal immigration in Chile threatening the jobs of locals. Cast is quite a character.

He's really far right. His family is closely aligned with former the deposed dictator, Augusto Pinochet. I don't believe in the guilt, you know, guilt by association. But even so, right, like one of his family members was a neo-Nazi. Someone else worked for Pinochet directly. So it looks likely that, you know, as of mid-December, Chile will be considered the latest of the countries to go far right, but albeit with a huge far-left minority, how is it all going to play out? I mean, it just seems like on the one hand, it's nice to have a

clear choice as a voter, but it does, it's a little, it's kind of new territory to see such polarization that there's just no center whatsoever. It's France seems to be looking like, that seems like a view of the future, right? Like there's going to be, there's really no place for militant moderation anymore. And this is exactly what we've seen happening in Argentina as well. It's not just Chile in, uh, in South America. And you make a good point about France as well. There is no center. You could probably say the same about, uh, about the UK, where now we have to worry about Nigel Farage displacing the conservative party and seeing the conservative party make way for a far-right party that has its origins in xenophobia and racism. I don't understand this.

I've been to Chile. You've been to Chile. Same in Argentina. Sure, they have some economic problems, but it's nothing that time and deregulation can't take care of. I just don't understand the appeal of the far right especially in light of the fact that they survived Pinochet after all those years. Have they forgotten all the people that

were rounded up and taken to the soccer stadium to be executed? You know, have they forgotten people having to rat out members of their own family and then having those family members disappeared never to be seen again? I mean, I don't understand at all what the draw of a far right party is in

countries like this. I mean, aren't there people who like it, right? Like it's kind of among some reactionary people. It's viewed like, oh, you know, these are left-wing students. These are, you know, revolutionaries. These are troublemakers. These are hippies. These are druggies. Like, you know, sort of like the, how the, how Bong-Bong-Bong-Markos was killing drug dealers and drug users. Like, you're just getting rid of the scum. No, no. It wasn't Bong-Bong. Bong is too stupid to do this. something like that. It was Duterte. Oh, right, Duterte. Right. Good point.

No, Bongbong is more concerned about hanging out with the likes of Andy Warhol and helping his mom buy shoes. And now, lo and behold, he's the president of the Philippines. It's so, so like, what is happening in the world? Oh, my God. Yeah, well, I mean, I think it's, my theory is that, like, even the people on the right don't know it, but they're just contentive, You know, it's runaway capitalism. It's the rising disparity of rich and poor and a shrinking sense that it's possible to get ahead and prosper and succeed, even if you work hard and you have good luck, I think. See, but this leads me to say again that I just simply don't understand what's happening in politics.

You've got a country like Chile with a robust economy, at least robust by South American standards. it produces some of the finest wines in the world and indeed chilean wines are sold all over the world they're world class um you've got a highly educated mobile populace people who are worldly they travel and then you've got two extremist parties to choose from i just don't get it i don't understand what happened there um yeah well yeah No, I mean, it is true. I mean, you would think that after the history that you described from the 1970s and 80s and the disappeared and all that, that it would just be a society that's saying we're never going to do this ever again. Exactly.

But we always repeat the mistakes of history over and over. Yeah. Robbie's asking if you have something running in the background because it looks like a RAM problem. And people are still complaining about the feeds for both of us. All right. I'm looking to see if there's anything running in the background that I'm not aware of. Yeah, I apologize for this.

From our perspective, it looks like it's perfectly fine. Well, let's see. Robbie's in the Rumble Studio. So I think, but the problem is if I log out of the Rumble Studio, then the X is the X feed's going to drop off. Right. So, okay, here, let me bring in Robbie. Sorry, guys, you're really seeing how the sausage is made here. You're also seeing why we need Robbie.

Robbie, I'm going to dump the Rumble Studio. Can you go in and grab an X-Feed or something for that? Already done. So I can quit? Pull a plug. This is what happens. If it blows up, we'll let me fix it. Pulled.

Okay, we'll see. You know, running Rumble Studio and YouTube and stream yard at the same time. Very, very difficult. It's a lot of load. Yep. So keep talking. Keep talking. Okay.

while we're talking one two three test it's looking a lot clear for me over on x now so let's see here here on the rumble studio ted well we're not ted john while we're doing this i have i have a question for you yeah as a as one of my lefty friends it seems like all my friends are lefties can you can you explain to me as a creature on the right why people on the left think it think the immigration is such a good idea when it just drives down really just pisses off everybody. So what's the benefit? Well, it doesn't need to drive down wages. It does, but it doesn't have to.

It's because people will take advantage of undocumented workers, pay them less than the minimum wage, or keep them right at minimum wage, knowing that they're not going to report them to the authorities because they're here illegally. And so it looks way better now, Ted. Really? All right, well, that's, okay, so that's how we'll do it from now on.

Good. My apologies. Great, okay. And Ray C-2020 is saying perfect audio. Good. Great. All right, listen. Way better.

Thank you. So I want to try to answer that question. I'm going to disagree a little bit with you, John. I mean, I think even if, let's say all workers that were imported were fully, you know, within the fold and received getting minimum wage and being treated with, you know, in accordance with the law. It would still have a, you know, I think it's supply in demand in the labor market. You would still have a downward pressure on wages if you import more workers. I mean, I think that's just what would happen. But I mean, to answer Robbie's question, there's a number of

splits within the left and within the Democratic Party. And the old class-based left is, you know, is no longer ascendant, right? We, you know, it used to be a matter of like in labor, just like, you know, nobody wanted illegal immigrants, no one wanted immigration, you wanted strong border protections because there was a Marxist class orientation in the party. And then this sort of globalism that came out of the Clinton years and the sort of like, well, I mean, I remember hearing President Clinton argue in favor of NAFTA in the early 90s where he said it's really important for us to raise wages in Mexico. And it wasn't even a trickle-down argument, like, well, then we'll be able to sell the Mexican stuff.

It was literally, we just need to do that. And I was like, why? I don't understand. I don't care about the, I don't care. Your responsibility is not to the workers of Mexico. Oh, no, no. I think what he meant was if we, if we helped to raise wages in Mexico, Mexicans would stay in Mexico.

Oh. But they can say Mexico anyway, John, you can build a wall and put the army on the border. Mexico is not our problem. Our problem, listen, in my opinion. Well, you have to care. Did you ever been to the border? You can't seal the border. You can sure try.

Well, I'm not sure trying. But to answer your question, no, I've never been. And I'm just thinking about this just from a, I guess, America first perspective. I'm not even a conservative. What is it to conserve anymore? There's nothing. It just seems like that the one responsibility that any government has for any country is to

its citizens, not to the citizens of the world. to your citizens, to your people, to the people who live in your borders. And it seems like that the American government and the Europeans, they are just like, nuts of the people that live here, we're going to be more interested in fixing the world's problems, even if it means the utter destruction of our own people. And that's why you have what you're having right now with this revolution.

There's a reason why there's a right winger like me here talking to the two of y'all. There's a reason why Trump has nuked his entire base over what? It makes no sense to me. We should, by the way, talk, while we've got you, Robbie, let's talk about Marjorie Taylor Green. So Marjorie Taylor Green, you predicted this, Robbie, months ago. Basically, that there was going to be the schism within MAGA world, and here it has blown up. I was taken by the fact that not only has MTG, you know, basically stood her ground. It may be easier to do now that her stock portfolio seems to be doing really well.

But also, she accused the president of raising the temperature to the point where she feels like her own life might be in danger. I don't think she's wrong. I think what he's doing is reckless. But she also is apologizing for her own intemperate, raise the temperature rhetoric over the years. Remember when she ran for Congress and she had a gun and she was shooting at pictures of her opponent? in the campaign ad. So, I mean, so what happens? Who ends up on the, who ends up on the, who ends up on the playing field here?

MTGs, Trump's, neither, both? Someone's going to lose a scalp. And this is where it's going to come down to the American voter. I mean, let's be honest. They're the right wing voter. Well, not even right wing in this case. Trump won because his coalition was against people. who are concerned about bread and butter issues if you're not people don't care don't

really care about Ukraine if they can't care about where you know how they're going to be able to pay their bills people are more interested in wages though not keeping track with inflation Trump won because he ran on those issues and then he immediately betrayed all those people voted for them which by the way included a huge number of blacks Latinos and Democrats so let's not forget that it wasn't the Republican Party elected Trump it was people like me who elected Trump. And Trump has said nuts to every single one of you. So what the question is going to be is, are these people going to turn out and are they going to reelect Marjorie Taylor Green?

Are they going to reelect Thomas Massey? And more to the point, are they going to start taking out squishy Democrats and squishy. That will have to do with the local politics in Georgia. Absolutely. From a national level, I don't think the Republican Party or the Democrats care. They're going to care. because if this turns into an apt to a real revolt from the grassroots, they're going to have to pay attention.

Well, I mean, I argued in my column for this week that, you know, in a two-party system with polarization and there's no such thing as a swing voter, which is really the truth now, that basically when you're a political party boss, your enemy isn't the other party. Your enemy is apathy. It's all about motivating your base. Sure. So, you know, disgruntled Republicans don't.

don't vote Democratic and vice versa. No, they stay home. They just don't vote. It's the sofa. The sofa is your enemy. Democrats have been, they lost to the sofa last November, you know, not this previous, not this time, but they did in 24. Republicans, are they in danger of losing to the sofa in assuming that Democrats don't pull a shutdown and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory again, like they did

with the shutdown? Republicans are the America First people are not that's the split and John up because you worked on the Hill this is something I'm really interested to hear what you think because you're actually there

was how much like whenever you work for John Kerry for example how much does he actually care about the people who lived in his state I mean do he care at all what they want factor in at all with the way with his

my definition of care maybe a little different from yours in this case. Kerry would say that he dedicated his life to serving the people of Massachusetts. I would say, well, maybe. Because he was looking at the big picture. He would argue that his obsession, let's say, with the environment was because he cared so deeply

about his constituents. he would say that his obsession with what do you call those carbon tax credits yeah those carbon credits yeah was because he cared so much about his constituents and a republican senator would have said something completely different but they i think just about all of them really believe that they're there to serve and that they are serving and this is exactly what they were elected to do where others of us might disagree. I got to answer a question from SOTA, and thank you for that, Robbie. I'm taking you out of here.

So Soden is, oh my God, did I just lose Soudon? Yeah, I did. A Soudon, okay. No, no, there it is. He wants to know if he, by the way, thanks for the 1999. Can I buy some of your cartoons signed by you so I can put it in my man cave? And John, you already signed your book for me. Can I have a deprogrammed show Memento signed by everyone?

That would be awesome. You should come up with something like that. We should do some merch. Guys, if you want to email us at deprogram show, was it deprogram podcast? I think it's the, hold on, what is the, I'll put it up here. It's the same as for the PayPal. If you email us at, where is it, deprogram podcast at G. I just put it up.

We will let us know what kind of merch you would buy. You know, we could do coffee mugs, we could do shirts, we can do anything. It's super easy these days. So that would be fun. That would be totally fun. And the answer, Soden, is, of course you can, I do sell my original cartoons. Just reach out to me. Just go to Rawl.com slash contact.

That goes directly to me. Just email me and we'll work it out. Generally, for an original cartoon, which is just black and white art, I usually charge about $250, but, you know, for a viewer of the program, I'm sure we could do something for less. And, you know, I'll send it right off to you. That same deal applies to everyone, of course, who watches the show. So, yeah, totally fun. And also, thank you, Artemis Maximus for the two Canadian dollars. Do I have to say Canadian or just dollars? Thank you. I could just say $2. okay so just reading too something from mr outstreet even if mtg and massier voted out it's the genie out of the bottle now regarding israel and apache etc i think there's something

to be said there and i think that yeah what we're seeing now is the very beginning of the tide turning on is agreed well it's also it's not career death to come out against Israel anymore. That's right. I mean, you can criticize Israel on a show like this and really nothing happens to you. I mean, part of what is going, I think harming APEC is

like I remember I did a cartoon critical of Israel back in the L.A. Times back in like the early 2000s. And I had Israel lobbyists up my ass and calling my editors trying to get me fired at the time. Well,

they can call who they want. Who are they going to call? John, you? Right. Fire Ted? You don't hire me. You don't employ me anyway. We're all self-employed. So, like, the thing is, in a way that the fact that people aren't working for mainstream

media outlets makes it much harder for them to yank our reigns. That's right. We don't have reins anymore. We work for the people. A couple of weeks ago, a couple of weeks ago, there was an article in an obscure journal called the Middle East Report. and it was written by the political advisor to the Israeli foreign minister. And he mentioned me about two-thirds of the way through this thing.

And he called me noted anti-Semite, John Kirooku. Blow me. Can you imagine that? Furner. Noted anti-Semite. It's too bad. It's really too bad. You don't have just lawyers on retainer to sue people like this because they deserve it.

people really need to fucking watch what they say the tide is turning because you can't you can't accuse everybody of anti-semit it doesn't mean anything anymore like oh if you're pro-Palestinia or an anti-Semite you know

if you don't think bombing Iran's a good idea you're an anti-Semite exactly nobody it just doesn't yeah it doesn't matter anymore they've overplayed their hand thank you Zandroid is now a monthly supporter over on I believe on

YouTube I guess that is so thank you so much Manja asks what do we think happens to Israel if the U.S. starts forsaking them oh yeah they might have to live like a civilized country like everybody else

does game over yeah yeah that I think that's exactly right sorry the apartheid days are over they can call up their old friends in South Africa and they'll be told exactly how that works thanks for two bucks to U.S.C. triple X Arod not sure if this question but it's really israel the only country to use the u.s as a proxy i think so it's a good question

yeah yeah oh i think i think clearly um we need to talk about gaza and iran which one you want to do first yeah let's do iran first because that's an easy one we can get it out of the way cool uh you the iranians confirmed last night that they are not enriching uranium they're just not now the Israelis maybe can take a victory lap and say the Iranians aren't enriching uranium because the Israelis bombed them. Who knows? The truth is that the CIA in three separate national intelligence estimates over the last, what, eight years or so, have concluded each and every time that the Iranians were not enriching uranium to weapons grade. So now they're saying they're not enriching it at all. The world's a safer place so we can all declare victory and move on.

That's what it seems like to me. And you agree with that. I mean, do you think the world will believe the Iranians? Because there's always that like, well, you know, there's really no evidence that the Iranians ever lied about any of this. And yet they're always accused of lying. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, the CIA has its sources. inside Iran, and the CIA was concluding at the same time that Iran wasn't enriching uranium. So. But nobody, that's the funny thing, right? The CIA often concludes the correct information. And then the, and then the, their intel is that spun and mischaracterized by the White House, as we saw with the WMDs. I mean, the CIA, the CIA had the correct

conclusion. You know, I've, I've learned many, many times. And every time the hard way, that no matter what you say, people are going to take from it what they want to take. Not what you want them to take from it. It's not a quest for truth. I told a story on a podcast the other day where I did a clandestine meeting in a foreign country at a Marriott Hotel. And this idiot on Facebook who follows me and who just spams me all day long put out a substack. saying CIA agent which is incorrect I was a CIA officer CIA agent confirms that the CIA's preferred meeting place is Marriott hotels it's like no I didn't I didn't say any such thing not at all not even close so I had to write to him and say take it down because you make yourself

look like a fucking idiot so did he yeah he took it down but but people people are going to take from this what they want to i think the israelis should declare victory and move on move on instead of continuing it's not their way bomb yeah it's not their way no they they're right now they're like eyeing the west bank that's their deal um speaking of which we should talk about about Gaza. So the U.S., the U.N. Security Council was dealing with Trump's 20-point plan, which frankly was just basically a completely pro-Israel plan. And now Russia's come out with basically Russia claims that they're not trying to scuttle the plan, but they're just trying to add a path to Palestinian statehood, trying to figure out a way to make the West Bank and Gaza

a contiguous, something I've always been obsessed with, and getting rid of this sort of board of peace that would be like, I don't know, a Jared Kushner kind of operation. Basically, Russia's plan makes a lot of sense to me. It certainly makes a lot more plan than the American, more sense than the American one. So what happens now? Does the Security Council just go through a bunch of, like, the U.S. vetoes, the Russian plan, the Russia vetoes and China veto the U.S. plan and nothing gets done? Is that basically how this plays out?

You know, on the surface of things that say yes, but usually, not always, but usually in the Security Council, the Russians and the Chinese care less about these issues than we do. And so in the end, they will be willing to give up more than the U.S. is willing to give up, and they end up either abstaining or voting yes. So I think something will come out of this. it won't be exactly what the Russians and Chinese want, but it'll be something that will end up being acceptable to them. Oh, okay. That's super interesting. I would not have anticipated that.

We've just got a couple of... When I was assigned to the United Nations, Ted, my last tour at the CIA, I was specifically assigned to the Security Council. So I had to sit in hour after hour, after hour long backroom negotiations. There's literally a back room at the Security Council. And everybody crams into it.

It's very small. So the ambassadors all sit at the table. All the rest of us sit around the perimeter of the room and take notes or pass notes to your ambassador or whatever. And in the end, we're the only ones that really take it all seriously. We're the only ones that think that the UN is actually an organization that gets things done. It's not. And so we end up getting what we want. Interesting.

That is super interesting. I would not have anticipated that. One last question, then we're going to call it a show. Mania gets the last one. What do we think about the Japanese economy contracting 2%? I think it's worrisome. I mean, things really seemed settled, sort of like Japan was in its sort of permanent slog ever since the 1990 real estate bubble blew up.

And to me, that indicates, I mean, the Japanese are ferocious sabers. You know, if the economy is contracting to that point, I think it's like a lot of things happening all at the same time. They have a major birth rate problem. Real estate's completely out of control. That's like our future. I don't know. I think it's worrisome as an early warning sign of global recession.

I agree, especially when you think of the fact that there are no. passenger cars, no sedans that are built in the United States. American auto companies only build SUVs. We buy most of our passenger cars from Japan. Anywhere in the world that you go, people are driving

Toyota. Well, you get them from China, if they'll let us. If they'll let us. Yeah. Guys, we are here Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. Eastern time with producer Robbie West back. we should be able to have a smoother show technologically starting tomorrow. Thank you for bearing with us today. Much appreciated. Please stay tuned.

Please like, follow, and share the show. Thank you for all of your donations. If you're watching not live but streaming, we appreciate you. And you could always donate through the PayPal or through the Rumble Feed. The Rumble Feed is live through the, anytime you watch. But for any kind of donation and you really want to make sure you support the show, We're a deprogram podcast at gmail.com. You can PayPal your money there.

We're going to try to figure out a way for people who don't like PayPal to do something that doesn't involve as many fees or any fees at all. But that's there for the time being. Thank you. Please stay tuned to TMI show with me and Manila Chan coming right up right here. And we will see you back. See you tomorrow, John. Bye.

Bye, bye, bye, everybody. And now I've got to find this thing. Thank you.